


Never Reaching an End

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Series: Brothelers [9]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitute, M/M, Mathematics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:03:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The smile was hard to hold.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Reaching an End

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first posted July 13, 2006.

Charlie rested his chin on his fist, remembering to keep his lips curved at just the right angle, his eyelids sagging sleepily. His client's English was good, only accented enough to make it interesting to listen to, in marked contrast to his conversation. Charlie wasn't really expected to contribute anything, verbally, but it was good form to _remember_ what clients said when they were feeling chatty like this (as opposed to the things they said unintentionally, which it was best not to even _hear_, let alone refer to later). So he kept his eyes half-open and scanned for keywords, and ran his toes over the client's ankle.

He'd always had a knack for remembering numbers, strings of numbers, anything mathematical, and it had been years since he'd learned to expand it--through a series of mental relations between numbers and words, numbers and features, numbers and facts--to remembering almost anything. He'd tried to explain the conversion system to Don, once. Just once, and never again. So the listening and remembering was easy. The motion of his foot, the occasional sleepy/sultry blink, that was just mechanical, automatic motions on their own rhythms, easy as breathing.

The smile, though. The smile was hard to hold. He couldn't let it become too rigid, too plastic, and yet it must not waver or fade. He didn't want to smile--nor to listen, nor to be the fucked-out star-struck rent-boy his client wanted. He was tired, and he wanted to go home. It had been a long week, and the most he'd seen of Don was sharing the sports section while eating a hasty lunch in the commissary earlier today, cramming for this appointment by memorizing his client's latest stats.

Early on, he'd spent moments like this thinking about what he wanted, the reasons he was here, the things he meant to achieve. Al liked talent to have a plan; he'd been delighted to find that Charlie had one right from the start, and had sat and plotted it out with him during his second interview, timelines and spreadsheets and contingency measures. Charlie had clung to the plan at first, thinking of his goals when the going got rough, but he'd long since stopped that. He was afraid of cross-contamination: it would be an empty victory to get what he'd wanted and find himself able to think of nothing but _this_.

So he wouldn't think of what he was selling himself for. He didn't need to, really; selling himself was automatic by now. He'd been selling his brain since he was four years old, for approving smiles, for--for a lot of things which all seemed to boil down, in hindsight, to more and more approving smiles. And he'd learned to sell his body, too, for all that he hadn't done it under contract until he got here. Here, he sold both--not just his ass but his genius, because the clients liked the combination, and were willing to pay for it. The money was great, but it didn't leave him much of himself for himself.

His client was reminiscing, now--his teenaged years back in Russia, coming up through the system on one hockey team after another, his life controlled by coaches and practices, games and playoffs and medals. Selling his body, Charlie thought, selling his skill for a chance to get out, to get _here_. Charlie would have been tempted to point out the similarity if he'd ever had a chance to get a word in edgewise, but _We aren't so different, you and me_ was high on Al's list of things talent weren't allowed to say unless specifically instructed to do so in the course of a role-play.

No one was interested in his client's brain, though--not any more of it than was required to speed his legs down the ice--so he could never have sold that. His thoughts might be inane, but if no one might ever want to publish them then they were entirely his own, and Charlie thought maybe that was something to envy.

His smile was slipping; Charlie hid it with a half-faked yawn, turning his face down to nuzzle at the client's chest. He had a birthmark beside his nipple that would have been the first thing to go if he'd come to LA to act, instead of to play hockey. Charlie made an effort to find that endearing, and the smile came a little easier when he tilted his face up again. His client ran a hand through Charlie's hair, tugging gently, and Charlie made a low wordless sound and turned up the smile a notch. The client kissed him briefly on the mouth and then settled back against the pillows and resumed talking.

Charlie had to think of something, to keep himself awake and smiling. He reached for numbers, because he always had numbers, even when he had nothing else of himself, nothing to look back on or forward to. He could always worry at P vs. NP, which was a stupid problem to try to pick up seriously, but interesting to play with.

It was like doing math while wearing a cock ring--well, not like doing math while wearing an _actual_ cock ring, because that would be really distracting--but... well. You could start working on P vs. NP, knowing you wouldn't finish, and it would feel good for a while; you didn't quite care that you wouldn't get to the end as long as you could just keep _going_, pushing forward, one expression after another, on and on. But then it started to get frustrating--still good, and you became briefly madly convinced that you _could_ finish if you just kept going, hand moving faster and faster--and after that it just started to _hurt_, and you couldn't stop, and you couldn't finish.

His client laughed, and Charlie's eyes flashed open even as he realized that he was starting to get hard, thinking about P vs. NP of all things. He ducked his head, Bashful Look #2, and muttered, "I just--your accent--"

"Da?" his client said softly, his eyes sparkling, and he really was attractive in a blond way, apart from the crook of his twice-broken nose. He murmured something low in Russian and flipped Charlie onto his back, moving over him, ready for a second round. _Game on_.


End file.
